On the Inside Looking Out
by Romulan Empress
Summary: The oldest Ootori sibling watches his youngest brother grow up. Kyouya's brother's point of view on the family company, his sibling, and Tamaki and the rest of the Host Club.


As I am the oldest sibling in my family (my father's plan: you and your sister can share my company when I retire!), I could not help but ponder what Kyouya's eldest brother's point of view would be. Therefore, I wrote this to explore that largely neglected side of the Ootori story. Also, I may write some more one-shots from this point of view focusing on specific events if I am inspired, in which case they will be added as new chapters in this story.

My birth could not have been more fortunate. I was born the eldest son of Ootori Yoshio, head of the prestigious Ootori Group, poised to succeed and rule the business world of tomorrow. I inherited the intelligence to run the business along with the looks to be a charismatic leader. I took after my father in appearance, with the same straight black hair and intense eyes, though I always inherited his nearsightedness. I displayed all his favorable aspects and improved on the less favorable ones, with less severe features and several extra centimeters in height.

From the day my parents enrolled me in Ouran for elementary school, I was a success in the world outside my home without my father's guidance. I already had experience networking with people through my travels with my family and my father's business dinners, which I was required to attend. In school, I immediately rose to the top of the class and stayed there. I was fairly popular, partially due to my surname and partially due to my looks. Either way, teachers favored me and peers spoke of me with respect. Father was pleased.

Over my first five years, I was joined by one younger brother and one younger sister. Both bore the same traits of good breeding that I did, for both were intelligent and good-looking as well. They joined me at Ouran, gaining the top positions at their levels and becoming popular with their own classmates. Still, I remained the favored child in my father's eyes, for I was the firstborn, the one who would succeed. He was the king, and although my siblings and I were all royalty, I was the Crown Prince. Things continued in the vein until I entered my last year of elementary school, and my mother unexpectedly got pregnant again.

Kyouya was an accident, unlike us first three children, the product of my parents' belief that they were too old to have more children. I was just as surprised as the rest of the family, but dismissed it as unimportant to my life at the current point. He was so much younger that there was no way the two of us could relate, so I focused on middle school and building my own life. Kyouya would be just like the rest of us, intelligent and handsome, and he would join the ranks of Ootori Group with me and my younger brother and be a fine, high-ranking leader underneath us.

I focused on middle school, and that faded into high school, which faded into college, which faded into medical school. I was busy, for keeping my grades constantly at the top was difficult. In addition to pure schoolwork, I studied to succeed my father, which meant networking and attending the social functions, and learned to deal with people as supervisor, equal, and rarely, inferior. I learned the ins and outs of the financial world and the insider tricks to owning and operating a business in addition to the purely medicinal side of my work.

During this time, my youngest brother grew up in much the same way our other brother and I did, or so I assume. I did not actually see him very much during that time, for the house was large and we kept to our respective wings. Both of us had social duties within our age groups and our own work when we were at home, and Kyouya was never the type to ask for help or play games with his siblings. We took meals together, but Kyouya was never awake for breakfast, and our meals were mostly silent, punctuated by comments or orders from our father. We both attended the requisite social functions, but there all of us put our masks on and used to the time to network.

I will never forget the day I first saw my youngest brother as a person in and of his own right. It was the end of summer, and he was in his last year of middle school. I was out of medical school and all my attention was focused on work. Still, I readily abandoned my paperwork when a servant knocked on my door and told me a friend of Kyouya, Suoh Tamaki, was visiting, and the young master was not home yet so the visitor needed entertaining. I tuned the rest of his babble out, focusing solely on the many times the name "Suoh" had appeared in the records of Ootori Group's most important dealings.

My middle brother joined me as I made my way down the staircase. The two of us made our way alone to the main parlor, which was used to host the most important of guests only. Another servant opened the door and I got my first look at the heir to one of my main competitors. Disturbingly enough, my first thought was that he was cute, in a young, puppy kind of way. Certainly his outlandish blonde hair and wide purple eyes gave him an innocent air, and for a brief moment I wondered what my brother had done to deserve the friendship of this ethereal being.

"My name is Suoh Tamaki," he rising with a smile and offering a hand to me first, as was proper. "Pleased to meet you." I took his hand and introduced myself, amused by the charm he was exuding, and made a note to ask Kyouya from whence came the European in him. He introduced himself with the same flourish to my younger brother, seemly unaware of my intense scrutiny. I knew he and Kyouya had gone all over Japan together in the past few weeks, but he had never actually come to the main Ootori mansion before.

"You two must be Kyouya's older brothers," Tamaki said. "He hasn't told me much about you." I noted the lack of honorifics and wondered if this was a recent thing or if it was simply a European habit.

"Well, that is probably because our dear brother spends most of his time with—" my younger brother began

"You must be Suoh-kun!" a voice interrupted.

"Her," my younger brother finished, gesturing over his shoulder at Fuyumi, who was hurrying across the hall to join us.

"What a delight to finally meet the lovely and gracious older sister of my best friend!" Tamaki said, making the amount of charm he used on us males look like a trickle in the stream under the summer heat. Fuyumi, of course, absolutely loved it as he took her hands and complimented her outfit.

"It's wonderful to meet you too, Suoh-kun," Fuyumi said, eagerly getting into the game as well. "Kyouya-san talks about you all the time, though you are somewhat different from what I imagined."

"I will do my utmost to measure up to your most beautiful dreams," Tamaki said. I could almost see the sparkles floating in the air around him as Fuyumi put a hand to her heart, clearly completely under his spell.

"Kyouya-kun isn't here right now," I said, stepping in and taking charge as was my role, "but we would be happy to entertain you if you want to wait," I said with my best new-client smile. Tamaki turned to me, eyes wide with surprise. I could not tell if it was feigned or not.

"Really?" he asked, sounding about ten years younger than his actual age.

"Really," I said, indulging him. "We have a few pools and tennis courts if you want to play a sport. If you are hungry, the cooks can prepare a light snack in the time it will take us to walk to a table. We also have a library—"

"Do you have a piano?" Tamaki interrupted. I wondered briefly if he had heard a word of my speech.

"Of course we do, though none of us can play it," I said with a short laugh. Discreetly, I gestured at a servant, and he ran off to make sure the piano room was in a condition to receive guests.

"That's okay," Tamaki said. "I want to play it myself. You can all listen if you want!"

"We would be honored to hear you play the piano, Suoh-kun," I said, unable to keep my own smile from gracing my lips. He had the best clueless and adorable act I had ever seen, and I felt myself falling for it and unable to resist.

The four of us made our way to the piano room, where the servants had rolled the piano to the middle of the room and placed a small couch near it for us Ootori siblings. It was a pretty room, if sparse, with a marble floor and the massive windows that characterized the entire mansion. However, Tamaki had eyes for nothing but the piano. He immediately broke off his conversation with me (he had been pushing for information about the furniture in our traditional Japanese rooms, though I had no idea why) and sat at the piano. My brother and I made ourselves comfortable on the couch while Fuyumi wandered over to a window.

I had never been overly fond of music. My classmates in medical school would put music on when they studied to help them remember the information, but I never needed nor wanted to do so myself. Music, to me, was something for background entertainment at social events, and classical concerts were excellent places to go with business partners. The extent of my own musical dabbling was a single course in elementary school in which I learned to play two songs on the recorder and promptly forgot both of them.

I am sure all three of us assumed that Tamaki would show off some little piece he had learned in school last week, and then my brother and I could grill him on the Suoh businesses and his plans for them. However, from the moment his fingers touched the keys, I found myself drawn into the music in a way I had never before experienced. It seemed to embody the promise of things I had always dismissed as unimportant, love, and happiness, and the certainty that everything would be alright. It was a grassy meadow on a warm day, it was two children with pinkies hooked in some promise, it was a letter from a loved one after months of separation. I felt tears make their way down my cheeks and soak into my collar and found that I did not care.

At some point Fuyumi turned away from the window and left. She returned several minutes later with Kyouya. I barely heard the dull thud as Kyouya's bag hit the floor so focused was I on the piano. They stood together in the doorway until Tamaki finished his song with a small smile. No one moved for a long moment, for Tamaki was lost in his memories and us Ootori siblings were unused to feeling so deeply, particularly when some middle school brat was the cause. Tamaki was the one to break the silence.

"Oh, Kyouya! You're home!" he cried with exuberance, completely oblivious to his effect on the rest of us. He bounded past us older brothers to greet Kyouya as eagerly as though they had been parted for weeks. I took the opportunity to wipe my face and pull my dignity back together before rising to congratulate Tamaki and greet my youngest sibling. Kyouya stood rigidly, his face closed and his eyes hidden behind the glare of the light off his glasses. For the first time, I really looked at him as a person and not simply as a child who happened to share a name with me.

In the formal photograph of the Ootori men, Kyouya seemed almost like an afterthought. My middle brother and I stood behind father, tall and proud in dark suits that subtly complemented one another. By contrast, Kyouya stood slightly to the side behind my brother, like the photographer could not decide where to put him once the other three looked perfect. His white school uniform, while by no means ugly, provided a stark contrast to the muted greys and blues of our suits. No one ever said anything, but we all heard the whispers and saw the somber looks directed at Kyouya. At times, even I almost felt sorry for him. This was not one of those times.

Like me, he took after our father, but I was surprised at how much his demeanor resembled father as well. His neutral expression that still seemed somehow fearsome and the reflection off his glasses were both first perfected by our father, and all three of us sons could copy them to some extent, though Kyouya was by far the best. I briefly toyed with the idea of changing the shape of my glasses, but decided that I did not wear them often enough to bother. Kyouya not only had the mannerisms perfect, but he was clearly just as successful as the rest of us. I felt a stab of envy at the familiarity with which he and Tamaki called each other by their first names and immediately repressed it. Just because this vital alliance was my brother's triumph and not mine did not mean that it would not benefit the company as a whole.

"We are going to have some tea," Tamaki announced, breaking into my reverie. "Would you all like to join us?"

"No, thank you," I declined courteously. Excellent connection or not, I had no desire to spend my afternoon with a couple of middle school students. Kyouya would undoubtedly want some time alone with his friend as well. I wondered briefly if I had ever seen him bring anyone else over one-on-one and decided that I had not.

Over the next several months, I watched my youngest brother about as much as I watched my middle brother. Ironically, Tamaki himself made it easier for me, for Kyouya was a very secretive person and left to his own devices would simply retreat to his wing and work. Only Fuyumi bothered him there before Tamaki intruded. The blonde seemed to think that because he had received a favorable reception his first visit, the Ootori mansion was his second home, and I got used to seeing him around at the oddest times. Needless to say, he quickly lost that angelic quality he possessed while playing the piano and became more of an… annoyance.

"Good morning, Oniisama!" I heard one morning as I was making my way outside with coffee and canister of tennis balls in one hand and tennis racquet in the other.

"Good morning, Suoh-kun," I greeted, too busy attempting to balance my cup before I spilled hot coffee all over myself to look up. "Kyouya-kun never awakens before noon on his days off, though you can join me for a game of tennis if you would like." Tamaki laughed.

"Actually, Kyouya and I are going out now, so maybe some other time," he said. Finally balancing the cup, I looked up to ask if he had heard what I just said. What I saw nearly made me drop everything again. Both kids stood in front of me, if stood could be applied to Kyouya, for though Tamaki was awake and chipper, Kyouya was still unconscious and slung haphazardly over the other boy's shoulders. I blinked rapidly, wondering if I had remembered to put in my contacts.

"Suoh-kun, is Kyouya-kun alright?" I asked as politely as I could manage, trying to find a balance between considerate host and concerned older brother. As powerful as Suoh Yuzuru was, his son probably could kidnap Kyouya without legal repercussions, though he would have to evade the Ootori Private Police.

"I'll make sure he's awake before we get there," Tamaki assured me. "After all, there is no way I would let my best friend miss out on all the fun activities we are going to do today!"

"Ah," I said eloquently, nodding and hoping I did not appear as clueless as I felt. Tamaki and I bid one another good day, and I made my way outside to the tennis courts. Looking toward the front of the house, I watched Tamaki's Mercedes make its slow way down our driveway until it disappeared and sighed. Maybe Kyouya would meet some… normal people in high school.

If possible, things got worse when Kyouya entered high school. I wondered if I was right to start viewing him as someone worthwhile to the Ootori Group, for all his attention seemed to be focused on some inane club at school. I had no idea what the club was about, nor did I care. All I knew was that it interfered with his work, if he still did any, for when he was home he still kept to his own wing. He did manage to make more friends, all from prestigious families, but instead of lessening Tamaki's effect, they seemed to support him.

One morning, I was interrupted in my perusal of the newspaper by a loud cry of "commoner department store!" The phrase reeked of Tamaki and his flamboyance, but it was spoken by two voices, neither of which belonged to the blonde. Clenching the financial section in one fist, I opened the door to glare at whichever pathetic teenagers were at fault only to see a fairly large group, my sleeping brother included, making their way downstairs, Tamaki in the lead. The loud culprits were a set of twins I identified at the Hitachiin brothers, causing me to quickly recalculate the amount of irritation in my expression.

"Good morning, Oniisama!" Tamaki said, cheerful and oblivious as ever.

"Good morning, Suoh-kun," I said brusquely. Over his head, I saw my last brother appear at the end of the hallway, clearly with the same intention to punish to the noisemakers. He immediately disappeared again upon seeing me and the size of the group that was cornering me.

"Are you taking Kyouya-kun out again?" I asked, hoping he would take the hint in my tone and leave, quickly.

"Absolutely," he said brightly. "We are going to a commoner department store for research for certain absent members of our club. Look, they have an expo!" I wondered briefly how he could wave the brightly-coloured flyer in my face and still hold on to my poor brother at the same time.

"That's very nice, Suoh-kun," I said, feeling as though I was patting a dog on the head for fetching a ball. Luckily, the twins had settled down and took pity on me. Maybe they feared my retribution after experiencing Kyouya's ire in the past or something.

"Hey, my lord, we should probably get there early before the commoners buy everything," one of them said.

"Oh, right!" Tamaki said, purple eyes widening with renewed excitement. "Good-bye, Oniisama! We'll bring Kyouya back safely tonight!" With those parting words, the entire group made its way out of the house, leaving me in blissful silence.

"Are you having trouble handling a group of high school kids?" my remaining brother asked. I turned the full force of my glare on him in lieu of the Hitachiin siblings. He only smirked from where he was leaning against the wall in a deceptively casual pose.

"At least I am not the one who ran away the moment he saw them," I shot back before slamming the door and opening my paper again.

Although I was always eager for more information about my youngest sibling, specifically that relating to how useful he would be to our company once he had a few degrees, I only made the mistake of answering his cell phone once. In a rare display of temper, Kyouya had stormed into the house with all the fury of hell on his face, deposited his bag in the middle of the floor, and stalked outside to take his ire out on our tennis equipment. When his phone rang and Tamaki's face appeared on the screen, I decided to answer it, for I had still not managed to corner the Suoh heir alone to talk business. Perhaps he would be more sensible over the phone.

"Hello?" I asked, bringing the thin, black device to my ear.

"Mommy! The children are missing and I can't find them and I am worried that those unscrupulous—" I held the phone away from my ear and stared at it in stunned disbelief. Perhaps Tamaki had accidentally pressed "Ootori" instead of "Okaasan"?

"Suoh-kun? I think you have the wrong number…" I said, risking my hearing to bring the phone back to its proper position. Tamaki's panicked babbling took on an entirely new direction upon hearing my voice.

"Is this Kyouya's phone?" he asked. "Is Kyouya missing too? Is he with Haruhi? Did you kidnap him? I can pay the ransom—"

"Suoh-kun, please calm down!" I admonished in an attempt to save my eardrums. "This is Kyouya's older brother. Kyouya-kun accidentally left his phone inside. Did you need to speak to him?"

"Yes! Please give him the phone quickly. It's very important," Tamaki whined, finally calming down.

"Alright," I said soothingly, beckoning to a passing servant. "By the way, if you have a moment sometime, let me take you and Kyouya-kun out to lunch. I would like to get to know you better before we meet across a conference table," I said with feigned lightheartedness before handing the phone to the servant with instructions to bring it to the tennis courts.

I never found out what Tamaki needed to tell Kyouya, though we did need to replenish our supply of tennis balls after that afternoon. Either way, Tamaki never called me and Kyouya never said anything, so I assumed that once again, the air headed Suoh heir had forgotten about my offer. Irritating though being disregarded in favor of my younger brother was, I had more pressing concerns. Father was growing anxious, and I had the sense that he was on the cusp of some major decision regarding the company. In addition to whatever was troubling him internally, a France-based company called Grand Tonnerre started taking over some of our enterprises, and they were more than powerful enough to buy the entire company if they wished.

For about a week, it seemed everyone in the Ootori family was busy, for Tonnerre's daughter was coming to Japan, possibly to seal the takeover. Even Kyouya, though still not actually part of the business, was busy with some festival at school, though I had less time to keep an eye on him. Suoh was also involved in the Tonnerre affair, and I heard rumors that when the Tonnerre girl went back to France, Tamaki would be going with her. Tonnerre was not quite powerful enough to overtake Suoh, but an alliance by marriage would accomplish much the same thing. I reflected with mixed fear and ambition that a merging of Ootori, Tonnerre, and Suoh would practically control the entire financial world.

Then one day, everything abruptly stopped. The Tonnerre girl left, without Tamaki and without Ootori Group. Ironically, I thought, Kyouya's little festival ended the same day as well. However, events in business did not just stop, but followed careful rules, so there had to be something more to suddenly end the nascent triple alliance. I went online and checked a few sources only to find that a fourth company, K.O., had bought Ootori Group out from under Grand Tonnerre's nose, but gave all managing rights to father. Search as I might, I only found that K.O. was run by a student investor, though I had no idea what the motives of this mysterious man were nor why he would leave the status quo essentially unchanged. I resolved to confront my father, but before I could, he called me and Kyouya into his study.

I took the opportunity to observe my youngest brother as we walked together to our father's study. His face and posture were carefully neutral, but he had the same quiet contentment about him as the cat that stole all the cream. I had the uncomfortable feeling of being on the outside of some great conspiracy that would upset matters as I knew them, though that was, of course, absurd. We entered the study, Kyouya following me, and stood before father, waiting for some hint as to why we were here. Without our middle brother between us, the half-head difference in our heights seemed all the more pronounced.

"Congratulations on your recent acquisition, Kyouya," my father said, never one for greetings or small talk. I glanced curiously down, but Kyouya seemed unsurprised.

"Thank you, father," he said respectfully. "I wondered if you would figure it out."

"And," father turned his eyes on me, "have you figured out what happened with Ootori Group yet?"

"A company called K.O. bought it before Grand Tonnerre, but gave all managing rights to you, father," I said promptly. Father was checking to see if I had done my research, and as usual I knew the correct answer immediately. Therefore his next comment surprised me.

"Did you find out who K.O. actually is?" my father pressed. The feeling of vertigo increased and the room suddenly seemed ten degrees hotter.

"Not yet, father," was all I could say.

"I see," he responded. There was a pause in which I resisted the urge to fidget like a child who had just failed some vital exam and was now under the scrutiny of his teacher. The glare from the glasses of both my brother and my father seemed like spotlights, highlighting every miniscule failure and flaw since my birth. Father at last broke the silence and said, "Kyouya, tell him who K.O. is."

"K.O. stands for… Kyouya Ootori," Kyouya said. He did not need to elaborate. The ledge I had been standing on crumbled as I realized I had made a grave miscalculation regarding the youngest Ootori brother. The afterthought was now in charge of my livelihood.

"I hesitated to name a successor to Ootori Group because I wanted to see how Kyouya would play his hand," father said, looking at me. "I have always known that both of you are exceptionally talented and would make fine leaders, but I did not know if Kyouya would be aggressive enough to compete for position as my heir. However, you hardly need that title now, do you?" he asked my brother with a rare smile.

"No, father," Kyouya answered, respectful and submissive as always.

"I will name you as my official successor," father told me, "though it seems that both you and I will be working under Kyouya for now."

"Yes, father," I said, in the same respectful tone as Kyouya. What else could I say? All three of us knew that I would immediately begin plotting to reclaim my position at the top, and all three of us knew that we would never actually speak aloud of the ruthless games we played with one another.

"As for you, Kyouya, I doubt you will ever admit that asset can be measured in something other than yen," my father continued, turned back to my brother, my boss. "However, when you find someone who motivates you to shed your fears and overstep boundaries, it is advantageous to keep that person close to you. I am considering a marriage between you and that scholarship student, Fujioka Haruhi."

Rare, genuine emotion flooded the face of my stoic little brother. Pure shock was expressed in widened eyes and raised eyebrows, which was probably the equivalent of gaping with opened mouth for a normal person. Being Kyouya, the shutters came back down almost immediately, but that brief flash of humanity was enough to tell us that for once in his life, father had also miscalculated. The person who motivated Kyouya to step outside his frame was not that girl, whoever she was. For the first time, I realized that I had no idea who the man standing next to me was.

"I am sorry, father, but courting Haruhi would be like courting my daughter," Kyouya said. His tone lost none of the deference he had always displayed, but this was the first time I had ever seen him directly refuse one of father's orders. My only consolation was that father had been caught just as off-guard as me.

"Very well then," he said, submitting to his youngest son. The two, one a high school student and one an experienced businessman, gazed at one another for a long moment until father looked away. It was a clear dismissal, and Kyouya and I both bowed and exited.

"So… can I take you out to lunch sometime?" I asked once the door closed behind us. Kyouya ducked his head, possibly to hide a smirk, as we both knew that I was only offering because he suddenly had something I wanted. That was how we worked, and that was expected of us, and there was no point in even mentioning it.

"That sounds pleasant," he answered graciously, playing his own role. We looked evenly at one another, businessman to businessman, stranger to stranger.

"Kyouya!" Tamaki's voice interrupted us as the blonde himself appeared at the end of the hall. "Did you forget about our picnic?"

"Duty calls," I said softly. Kyouya nodded and I watched him as he turned and joined his friend, who was carrying a basket large enough to contain all the food in our kitchens.

"You're never in this wing," Tamaki whined, taking Kyouya's arm and dragging him away. "I had to search everywhere for you while my poor daughter starved…"

"You could just ask a servant for my location," Kyouya pointed out as they descended down the stairs and out of earshot. I watched them leave, already designing strategies in my head to get to know my youngest sibling, starting with his motivation. Faint piano music floated out of my father's study and a sudden thought hit me. Kyouya said courting Haruhi would be like courting his daughter, and Tamaki had just admonished Kyouya for keeping his daughter waiting. There were other clues too, like a jumbled phone call asking for "Mom" and a reference in passing to children…

My feet took me to my own study and my fingers were flying across my keyboard before I could stop to question my hunch. By tracing stock records, I was able to determine the day K.O. went online. I cross-referenced this with other dates and just as I expected, the day K.O. started was a day I had marked myself, the day Suoh Tamaki first came to our house. I turned my monitor off and pressed my forehead against the cool screen.

"You win, little brother," I muttered with a small chuckle. "There's no way I can fight a lucky charm like Suoh-kun." After a moment, I straightened and called in few favors. Kyouya may have won, but he would need to stay alert if he wanted to keep his place at the top of the ladder. He had issued his first overt challenge, and now the clock on my side of the chessboard was ticking. I smiled as my fingers moved rapidly over my keyboard. This would be fun.


End file.
